Germany to Compensate Gay Men Convicted for Homosexuality with $3,238 Plus More for Those Imprisoned

Some 5,000 victims of the discriminatory legal clause are still alive. If the new legislation is enacted as expected, they’ll be able to claim 3,000 euros ($3,238) compensation plus an additional 1,500 euros for every year they served in prison.

German Justice Minister Heiko Maas (pictured) said victims should have been legally rehabilitated and compensated many years ago.

“The rehabilitation of men who were brought up before the courts solely because of their homosexuality is long overdue,” Maas said in Berlin on Wednesday. “They were pursued, punished and reviled by the German state just because of their love of other men, because of their sexual identity.”

Paragraph 175 was formulated in 1871, but it was rarely enforced until the Nazi regime expanded it to make homosexual acts of all sorts between men into felonies. The law was retained in both West and East Germany after World War II.